


Take Me in Flames, Bury Me in Ash

by MagpieWords



Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [12]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Scene: The Bookshop Fire (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:53:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25956298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieWords/pseuds/MagpieWords
Summary: The bookshop fire would turn out very differently for two mortals.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: AUgust 2020 - Magpiewords [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860265
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: AUgust 2020





	Take Me in Flames, Bury Me in Ash

**Author's Note:**

> So this was for the prompt "firefighter AU" and I decided that this whole challenge had gotten a little too soft and fluffy. It's time for some angst. I think this it the first time i've ever written Major Character Death, so that was as exciting as it was tragic.
> 
> Please heed the tags, you've been warned. (see end notes if you'd like spoilers before reading)

Crowley wouldn’t call himself much of a collector. Aziraphale collected nearly everything - old books, ticket stubs, eclectic coffee mugs - but Crowley’s minimalist style pretty directly contradicted the point of a collection. Maybe his plants counted, but a collector wouldn’t so readily throw out poorly performing treasures with the trash.

Aziraphale had started picking up the disgraced plants, after Crowley left them in the bin. He’d been ‘secretly’ nurturing them back to health, as though Crowley had no idea about it. It was cute, to say the least. Crowley wondered, if this relationship of theirs continued the way it was, maybe when they moved into together, his minimalist style would find a way to evolve around Aziraphale’s collections. Crowley liked evolving with Aziraphale.

They had only started dating two years ago. In any other context, ‘only’ and ‘two years’ would sound ludicrous, but Aziraphale had asked to go slow after their first date. Crowley would give that man the moon, if he could, so he could give him slow.

They’d known each other for longer, almost eleven years since A. Z. Fell stormed into the community board meeting and demanded the flower shop next to his store take their plants inside. Given that the particular shop in question had been Crowley’s employer (and his boss couldn’t be bothered to attend the community meetings that affected the whole community) Crowley quickly became involved with Aziraphale’s nonsense.

It was simply enough to take the plants inside. Crowley refused for months because he wanted to spend more time with Aziraphale.

And now they were dating. Now maybe they’d move in together. Maybe they’d–

Crowley wouldn’t call himself much of a collector. He certainly wasn’t a collector of physical things. But he liked photo collections. Of good looking meals he ate with Aziraphale, of memes, of sunsets. And, like now, every time he passed someone with those “end is neigh” posters, he took a photo. He didn’t share them anywhere, that’d be rude, but something about the apocalypse being right around the corner was funny to him.

This woman’s sign said “The world is playing with fire” and Crowley thought some awareness of global warming was always good, even if it was tied with a reference to some biblical passage he’d forgotten the second he’d been kicked out of Catholic school.

He turned onto their street, box of pastries still warm in his hand, when a different warmth washed over him. The air was oppressively hot, even for summer in their little corner of Soho, and looked up from the new picture on his phone.

A building was on fire.

Aziraphale’s bookshop was on fire.

Crowley dropped the pastry box and sprinted forward.

“Sir, you can’t go in there!” One of the firefighters held him back.

“That’s my– he’s–” Crowley couldn’t get the words out. Aziraphale had never really liked labels. Were they technically boyfriends? Or would Aziraphale say something delightfully archaic, like ‘they had a romance between them’.

“Is there a person in the building?”

Crowley didn’t know. Maybe Aziraphale got out? But there was only one door to the shop, no back alley to escape out into. He glanced around, looking for a tuft of pale blond hair, for anyone wrapped in a shock blanket. There were only a handful of onlookers. 

“Sir?”

Crowley broke free, ignoring the shouting behind him, and ran into the burning building. The doors had been blasted forward, from a surge of the flames that must have occurred before Crowley had arrived. The air was unbreathable; even if there hadn’t been smoke, it was too hot to bear in his lungs.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley screamed. A record was playing, warping into a haunting tune against the flames. He could only move into the main entrance, standing on the hand painted compass he’d retouched with Aziraphale just three years ago. It had been intimate, laying on their bellies, paintbrushes bumping into each other, hands almost touching. Or perhaps Crowley was too sentimental for his own good and it had just been painting. Maybe he could ask Aziraphale when he found him.

“Aziraphale! Where are you, you idiot?” He turned in a circle, still with nowhere to go. Why wasn’t he outside? He had to be in here, he had been here just twenty minutes ago when Crowley left to get them a snack.

The shout of firefighters outside was quiet against the roar of flames and the twisted music in the air. The smoke was making it hard to see. Why weren’t the firefighters coming in here to help?

“I’ll find you!” Crowley promised, jumping over a plume of flames to push deeper into the bookshop. Burning pages fluttered around him. Aziraphale’s desk was completely lost to ash.

“Aziraphale, for God’s sake, where are you?” He hadn’t even prayed when he’d been in school, hadn’t meant it when he begged for forgiveness in confession, but now he wished he had. He’d trade anything for a sign of where Aziraphale was.

Crowley screamed into the flames and pressed on, coughing as he wound his way into the kitchen and immediately tripped over a tipped chair. He crawled to his hands and knees, and that’s when he saw him. Miraculously, prayers answered, Aziraphale was right there, within reach. Crowley scrambled over to him, taking his hands in his own. Aziraphale didn’t react. Limp, unconscious maybe? Crowley tried to shake him, pushed against his shoulder, waved their arms about together. No response. He tried to drag Aziraphale as the flames bloomed around them. He wasn’t strong enough to move him as the thick smoke overtook his breath.

He laid his head against Aziraphale’s chest and heard nothing. No rush of poisoned air into his lungs, no chuckle at Crowley’s lanky arms that could hardly carry half a stack of books. No heartbeat, just silence.

Shaking with fear, gasping for breath, Crowley placed two fingers to the pulse point on Aziraphale’s neck. Nothing. A confirmation worse than the silence. He tried the other side, tried each wrist, searching for any sign of life along his lover’s paper-thin skin. Still nothing. He thumped his palms against Aziraphale’s chest, like actors did in the medical dramas they watched together, but no heartbeat echoed back against his touch. He crashed their lips together and desperately tried to force air in Aziraphale’s lungs, but only tasted death in their final kiss.

“You’ve gone,” he realized. Sorrow at war with rage, as Crowley sat up and screamed. “Somebody killed my best friend!” More than a boyfriend, more than a romance. Somehow over these years, Aziraphale had become his everything.

The noise must have alerted the firefighters, who stormed into the tiny kitchen and dragged Crowley out. He struggled against them– if Aziraphale was burned, let the flames take Crowley too! But he was no match for the muscles of people who saved lives every day.

Saved every life but Aziraphale’s.

“Bastards! All of you!” Crowley choked, watching as they left Aziraphale’s body behind when a pillar collapsed, burying him in a tomb of treasured papers and ash.

Crowley wouldn’t call himself much of a collector. Every photo in his album mocked him as he deleted them one by one. They’d been right. The world ended for him the day Aziraphale died.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler : Aziraphale dies in the fire, Crowley is saved by the firefighters, despite wanting to die with his love.
> 
> I am actually a little bit sorry about writing this.


End file.
